


the fascination of what's difficult

by andibeth82



Series: a dialogue of self and soul [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Baggage, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Flashbacks, Natasha Feels, POV Natasha Romanov, Protective Clint, Red Room, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I want this,” she interrupts, taking his hand. “I don’t care what I have to do, what I have to have done to me. I want this.” She feels her eyes harden, a conscious effort of body and brain coming together in the same way she once trained herself to look a civilian in the eye, to shoot and then kill without a second thought.</p><p>“I want to balance my ledger, Clint. I want to get rid of the red, and I want this kid to help.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fascination of what's difficult

**Author's Note:**

> Continuous thanks to my beta [tag](http://bobsessive.tumblr.com) [team](http://fidesangelus.tumblr.com), who fix my commas and keep me motivated.

Pepper’s in Madrid for the following two days, which has left Tony antsy and irritable and Natasha can’t figure out if that’s because she does half the work around the Tower (which now isn’t getting done at all) or if it’s because he actually misses her in a way that only people who love each other can understand.

“The latter,” Clint says definitively one day while sparring in the gym. (It had taken more than a few tries and a bit of threatening, but Natasha had finally convinced him that she could still train by promising to only use upper body strength instead of the routine combat exercises she was used to.) “I mean, jeez, have you seen the way he looks at her? Only other time I’ve seen him that starry-eyed is when he’s around food. Or when Bruce solves some sort of chemical code.”

Natasha smiles. “Genius that you are, Barton, I could’ve told you that when I had this detail three years ago.” She twists sideways, barely missing the punch directed towards her shoulder, and finds her footing on the edge of the mat. “Pretty sure I almost wasn’t hired on the grounds that she thought I was going to take her boyfriend away.”

“So what’s left to wonder about?” Clint finishes the conversation easily while one hand comes up under her arm, shoving it back above her head as he pushes her up against a wall. Natasha shrugs and they freeze, faces pressed against each other. It’s a dance they’ve done so many times in so many different ways that they could do it in their sleep, but she doesn’t miss the barely-there difference in his pupils that marks the difference between now and five months ago, the worry masquerading itself as pretend-content. She fixates on it for a few moments, and then wrenches away.

“Just kind of endearing, you know? Until a few weeks ago, I would’ve never pegged him to do anything for anyone other than himself.”

Clint sidesteps her, leaning over, his hand closing around a half-filled water bottle.

“You ever do anything for love, Tasha?” He punctuates the question with a smirk, and she narrows her eyes.

“Fuck you.”

“I think you already have.”

The response causes Natasha to groan as she leans over to pick up her own water bottle. On her way back up, she also manages to deliver a swift kick to the underside of Clint’s kneecap and caught off guard, he crumples to the ground with a grunt of pain.

“Son of a bitch!” He rubs at his leg, wincing, and glares upwards. “You know, that wasn’t what I meant. And I said no full body combat.”

“Oh, please. I barely even moved my body. And I know what you meant, Barton. I’m not an _idiot_.” She twists her face into a grin as she watches him pick himself up off the floor, hanging back against the punching bag, the borrowed flip flops she had near been mandated to wear around the Tower askew by her feet.

“You coming?” Clint inquires, turning to hold out a hand. Natasha stares at the outstretched fingers and then nods slowly, making her way towards him.

“Must be nice,” she says finally as Clint presses the button for the elevator, stretching once before a confused look settles across his face.

“What must be nice?”

Natasha feels the mask slipping and looks away in advance of pulling another one on, suddenly too tired to pretend that this doesn’t bother her, that any of it doesn’t.

“To not have red.”

The doors open softly in front of them but Clint doesn’t move, and for a long time there’s nothing but the sound of their breathing, the patterned hum of the air conditioning and the shifting of feet in place against the floor.

“Everyone’s got red, Nat.”

Natasha shakes her head, feeling sad and exposed in a way she’s not used to openly demonstrating, even in his presence, even to someone that knows her better than she sometimes knows herself.

“But not everyone is us.”

Clint moves his lips into a thin line as he wraps an arm around her shoulders, guiding her into the elevator. Five floors later, the lift drops to a halt, and she steps forward to see the entire team scattered en masse around the Tower.

Tony’s sitting on the couch, one hand absently resting in the spot Pepper would normally occupy, and Bruce is talking about science while Steve is staring at an open map, his face a mask of concentration. She closes her eyes against the sight: Steve with his superhuman strength and Tony with his metal heart and Clint with his brainwashing and Bruce with his gamma exposure and Natasha Romanov, former Russian master assassin and super spy, pregnant and volatile and trigger ready.

Her fingers curl into her palm as the realization hits her, blinding her with a force so intense it almost causes her to cry out against her will.

_We’ve all been unmade._

 

***

 

The thing about Stark Tower is that it’s by no means cramped, even with the addition of Bruce and Steve’s temporary residency. Still, the fact remains that it’s been a long time since Natasha has lived with someone besides Clint, whose presence has become so comfortable, she barely thinks about it. So although they’re not technically stepping on each other’s toes, Natasha’s not really used to seeing in Steve in the hallway or having Bruce call up to her room when he wants information or, for that matter, running into Tony half naked.

Another thing that Natasha isn’t used to: being cornered by someone that hasn’t been sent to kill her, which happens at six in the morning when she’s in the middle of toasting bread and turns to find Tony and Bruce blocking her path. She makes a quick calculation, figures punching out people she likes is bad form even by her own standards, and gives a mostly harmless death glare instead.

“It’s _way_ too early, even for you. Especially for you,” she adds, nodding pointedly to Tony, who looks like he hasn’t shaved or slept in more than 24 hours.

“I don’t sleep, Romanov.” He waves a hand around dismissively in response. “Haven’t you noticed?”

“Hardly.” She shifts sideways, effectively cutting through the small gap between their bodies and the counter, shoving her breakfast into her mouth while staring expectantly. Tony takes the opportunity to throw a glance towards Bruce, who rubs his hands together.

“We, uh. We want to start injections.”

Natasha swallows, pulling off another piece of bread. “Injections? Of what?”

“ _For_ what,” Tony corrects, leaning sideways. “There’s a significant amount of serum in your system, that over the years, your body has begun to produce naturally. It’s less intense than the one that my dad apparently fed to Rogers in the 40’s, but it’s still harmful enough to affect the reproductive organs. Right now, this child stands about a five percent chance of survival, if that.”

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious,” she mutters under her breath as Bruce steps forward.

“By our estimations, you’re about two months in. We’re hoping that if we start these injections now, they’ll work to counteract the serum that your body is creating.”

“Which will do what, exactly?” Natasha asks, rubbing a hand across her eye, half wondering if going back to bed is a safer option than facing the day.

“Lower it,” Tony breaks in. “If my math is correct - and it always is - it should be an easy way to get your metabolism to a level that’s safe enough for you to carry to term. And then we’ll figure out the rest when we get there.”

Natasha chews slowly, her brain working to comprehend the full meaning of the conversation as her toes curl into the floor. “This all sounds wonderfully…experimental,” she finally answers, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. “Are you planning on figuring it out during the birthing process, too?”

“Natasha…”

Somewhere in the past few minutes, when she wasn’t paying full attention to her surroundings, Clint has joined the conversation. His voice quietly filters into her eardrums, a soft warning filled with sixteen underlying meanings that he knows only she can understand, and she closes her eyes. Fingernails drag down the hard surface of the toast before she breathes out, a steadying of emotions both physically and mentally.

“Fine. When do we start?”

 

***

 

Tony wants to start immediately, Bruce wants to hold off for at least a day more for testing purposes, and Steve spends his time arguing the merits of both choices based on his own experience. Clint being Clint pushes all of them and gets into frequent spats that carry throughout the walls of the Tower while Natasha hangs back, not really sure what to do other than make sure she doesn’t kill someone in the process. She ends up spending a lot of time in the gym, throwing knives with practiced, familiar moves, and doesn’t bother to break her concentration until she feels a slight pain in her arm that signals a short reprieve is not entirely needed, but probably wise.

“How long have you been watching me?” She asks as she turns around, reaching for a towel. Pepper tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and smiles.

“Long enough to know you’re not just letting off steam as much as you are trying to keep yourself from shooting everyone in a three mile radius.”

Natasha bites back a laugh. “That obvious, huh?”

“Not as much as you think.” Pepper shrugs, crossing her arms. “Just some insight from a person who’s been there, done that. You don’t know how many times I’ve walked into Tony’s workshop at three in the morning only to find him beating the hell out of one of his bots.” She pauses with a look that makes Natasha realize Clint was definitely right about the nature of their relationship. “It wouldn’t be lying to say that sometimes, I wish I had that kind of outlet.”

“Yeah,” Natasha replies carefully, hitching up the bottom of her track pants. She side-eyes Pepper, has half a mind to ask how Madrid was, but the truth is, there are other things she’s more curious about.

“Is that why _you’re_ here?”

“Not today.”

“Are you here because Tony wants to tell me something and you’re playing messenger?”

“Not that either.” Pepper smirks. “Though I’m thrilled to hear that you think so highly of me.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Natasha deadpans, realizing with a bit of a jolt how long it’s been since she’s felt appropriately at ease with someone else of the same gender – though she figures ten years as Tony’s personal assistant and a few more as his actual girlfriend have probably done their job in hardening Pepper’s resolve enough to put her close to Natasha’s level.

“I’m here because you’re going to be with us for awhile,” Pepper continues. Her smile drops slightly but there’s no change in her tone, which is almost cause enough for Natasha to let down her guard. “And I know you trust me about as much as you trust the world…anyway, I’m on business a lot and you have Clint, but I just thought I’d let you know that it’s an option.”

She would be lying to say the entire sentiment didn’t catch her off guard, and Natasha fixates her gaze. Pepper’s not that much shorter without her trademark three-inch heels, and the casual ensemble of jean shorts and loose tee-shirt make her look more like a college student than CEO of a billion dollar corporation. Still, there’s an air of protection in the way that she carries herself that Natasha can read like the back of her hand, and it’s enough to allow her to feel some sort of strange mutual connection to the other woman, if only on a superficial level.

“Thanks,” she finally responds with about as much sincerity as she feels she can muster, and also because she knows deep down that there’s a part of her that really means it. Pepper nods in silent acknowledgement, turns away without saying goodbye, and Natasha waits until she’s out of sight before continuing her assault on the foam wall.

_***  
_

Later that night, Clint walks into the bedroom looking unsettled, one hand pulling at the hem of his shirt as if he’s trying to work up the nerve to say something that he’s not quite sure how to articulate. Natasha looks up from her papers and throws him a practiced nod.

“What’s wrong?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.” He looks down at his phone clutched in his right hand. “Some weapons operation in Geneva. They want me to get in on the action since it might involve a guy I worked with a few years ago…figure I’d know his fight patterns better than anyone else on the job.”

“Okay,” Natasha replies curiously, keeping her tone flat because there’s a part of her that senses he needs to feel normalcy in the way they discuss things that should be second nature. “I’ve never heard you consider turning down a mission before.” Her eyes follow his body as he folds onto the bed next to her, and she wraps her fingers around his free hand.

“They can’t promise it’ll be an in-and-out job. Bruce wants to start the treatments tomorrow, and if I’m not back, you’ll have to be there alone…” He trails off, his eyes losing focus somewhere in the distance. Natasha tightens her grip in the silence, holding his grasp until she hears his breathing slow, a sign that he’s come back to himself.

“Go,” she says quietly, without looking up, at the same time that Clint speaks.

“What if I’m not back in time? What if they find something; what if something happens?”

“Clint.” She waits until his body twists so that he’s facing her, one half booted leg settling on the bed. She rests a hand on the back of his neck. “I spent a lifetime with the word ‘alone’ before I met you. Whatever they find, whatever happens…I promise, I can handle it. And if we need to get in touch with you, I’m sure Tony has that covered.” Her voice softens, but just barely. “They need you. You should be there.”

“You need me; I should be with you,” Clint argues, slamming his hand against his knee a little too roughly. She sees his body start to tense again and moves closer, moving her hand up and down the base of his neck. It’s a silent, learned response – one she’s reciprocated countless times before, when they’ve had to bring each other out of anger benders that threatened to send them over the edge – and she continues to work her hands around his skin as she speaks.

“Remember that thing where you don’t tell me what to do?”

Clint looks up and Natasha moves a hand to his face, tracing over his lips, letting her finger come to rest just below his chin. He relaxes into her - a promise, an answer, a concession – and she takes it as her cue to continue.

“I’m telling you to go, so go. I’ll be fine. _We’ll_ be fine,” she emphasizes, watching his eyes flit to her stomach. After another moment of silence, Clint straightens up and reaches for his bow, his rigid posture a tight contrast against the mixture of concern and worry that remains etched over his features.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise. Just…don’t kill anyone while I’m gone.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Natasha replies with a small grin, settling back on the bed. Clint rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, I remember the last time you told me that. Fury chewed me out for a week and then gave me New Mexico.” He slings his quiver over his right shoulder and leans forward, feeling her lips curve slightly before he pulls away.

“Shoot to kill, Barton. Show ‘em you still got it.”

 

***

 

It’s not a surprise to see Steve, Bruce, and Tony waiting for her when she finally makes her way down to the workshop, but Natasha has to stop herself from doing an unconscious double take at the doctor’s chair that’s been set up in the middle of the floor. Her eyes move over the loose bands hanging off the sides, the array of needles on the tray table next to it, and she can’t help but raise an eyebrow as her stomach flip flops in waves of uncontrolled anxiety.

“Seriously?”

Tony and Bruce look vaguely unnerved at her response, but Steve moves forward without hesitation.

“It’s just for safety,” he promises, helping her slowly hoist herself into the chair. Natasha can’t stop herself from barking out a laugh.

“Oh, yeah. I feel perfectly safe.” She follows the lines on his slightly apologetic face as he pulls the straps over her forearms with distinct force. “Everyone loves a good memory of their days in a torture chamber.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Bruce cuts in, his voice every bit as sensitive and sincere as she knows it to be. Natasha meets his eyes over his glasses, and knows better than to challenge someone who so openly shared the pain of what it felt like to be restrained, to be compromised, someone whose life was built on being controlled by people who would – and have – put him in a cage without a second thought.

“No.” She clears her throat before raising her voice to a level that she hopes they buy as confident. “We’re good here.”

Bruce continues to hold her gaze, long enough to allow her stomach to loosen, and when he turns away, Steve steps up next to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. She manages a smile.

“Just like how you remember it, huh?”

Steve chuckles. “Yeah, kind of. But me, I was stuck in a cylinder with no way out. At least this place has windows. And better technology.”

She returns the laugh weakly, moving her head back towards the ceiling as Tony’s voice echoes throughout the room.

“JARVIS, run preliminary vitals for analysis; prepare to initiate phase one of Baby Barton.”

Natasha groans, shifting against the restraints, her awareness momentarily broken.

“Baby Barton? Am I allowed to override your project names out of sheer stupidity?” As she turns her head, she catches the mock hurt spreading across Tony’s face.

“Agent Romanov. You offend me and my creative, brilliant brain.”

“Let’s not forget that’s the only reason I like you.” She closes her eyes as Bruce lifts the needle, feeling a sharp sting in the crevice of her right elbow. There’s a moment of pain, a flash of Clint’s face, and then nothing except darkness.

 

  
***

 

The first memory isn’t so bad, all things considered: a room with damp walls, smelling of mildew with dried blood dotting various parts of the floor because she may be drugged but she’s not dumb: others before her haven’t been so lucky. The door is bolted shut, made to be soundproof, but even in her compromised state Natasha is trained for this and picks up what she can: whispering, droning voices in Russian and English and another language she can’t quite make out, her head swimming around the sounds as she fights for consciousness.

Natalia Romanova is, for the moment, blissfully unaware of what came before and what is still to come.

The second memory emerges with sharper edges: a man dressed in military garb who doesn’t speak, doesn’t smile, simply drags her to her feet and delivers blow after blow to the side of her face until she falls, bare knees scraping against the concrete as the skin around her eye starts to swell. Her legs are bound with coarse rope, hands restrained behind her back with sharp wire, and Natasha yanks her wrists free with one harsh movement, feeling the rush of blood against her newly cut skin as she kicks back against her target. She manages to get one hand up, wrapping an arm around the man’s neck, and pulls, hard, the resulting motion sending them both toppling to the floor. It’s enough to render him momentarily useless, but not enough to keep him down, and before she has a chance to recoil he’s grabbed her around the waist, knocking her back against the concrete with just as much force.

_“Give her more.”_

The discomfort in her wrists and the blood on her hands is nothing compared to the agony that courses through her body, each stab against her flesh is a searing, blinding pain but she doesn’t cry out, doesn’t yell, instead fights silently as much as she can with still restrained limbs. She knocks out one, two, but the third gets a needle into the back of her neck and she feels her legs kick out beneath her in one last attempt at control as her vision goes dark.

_“You’ll be red yet, Natalia. We’re not done with you.”_

_***  
_

The room isn’t red, not really, but the color is all Natasha sees when she opens her eyes. Pain and needles and a haze of dark, deep red, everything bathed in the color as though her pupils have been stained with it. A voice in her brain, cold and taunting and urging her to kill, a memory, a word, a movement that makes her feel volatile, and commands, orders and lessons and threats.

“Stop!” Natasha bursts out, pulling violently at the restraints, her fingers fumbling against the straps. “Stop it, _stop_!”

“Natasha!”

Tony and Steve react at the same time, arms outstretched as they lunge towards the chair. Steve gets there first and presses his weight down onto her with as much force as he can, struggling to retain his hold on her body.

“It’s okay…Natasha…” He’s yelling now, in a desperate attempt to break whatever memory is blocking her brain. “It’s _okay_.”

“It’s not okay!” The scream that rips from her body is shrill, her stomach heaving and she has to get free; she has to get free before they kill her, before they make her kill, before they come back and hurt her again and _no, I won’t do it, I won’t do it you can’t make me I’ll fucking kill you I’ll fucking kill all of you._

“Natasha. _Natasha_!”

Something hard knocks against the side of her head and she stills, but only for a moment. In the next, she’s blinking wildly against the view before her: a room and a man and a voice she almost but doesn’t quite recognize, her eyes glassy and unfocused.

“Barton,” she manages roughly, the word feeling heavy and foreign on her tongue as a chill of fear cuts through her body. “I want Barton.” She jerks forward once more while Steve presses back down on her shoulders.

“Tony – ”

“Yeah, yeah, already on it. JARVIS, override 4-5-2-8-7 for an intercept to Barton’s cell immediately. I don’t care whose conversation you have to disturb, just get him on the line and do it now.”

_“Yes, sir.”_

 

***

 

In her dreams, there’s a man. He circles her the way a hawk would circle its pray, looking but not really looking, trained to eye her every move with the same blank stare that he fixates on the floor, the band, the other patrons. She sees him when he first enters and concentrates on her own movements, a spider carefully weaving an invisible web around her prey so that she’s prepared for the moment that he loops a hand around her waist with the same exact precision as he angles his arrows, his voice a dangerously low vibration against her throat.

_“May I buy you a drink, Miss Romanov?”_

In her dreams, there’s a man. He’s looking at her the way a father might look at a child, disdain and concern permanently imprinted onto the lines of his face. She doesn’t know him by name, only knows him as the archer that never misses (but did), the man that offers no sympathy (but does.) She refuses to look him in the eye or take his food, spits out that she would rather starve to death than accept his pity or his empathy. He sits down across from her, his bow tight between his fingers, and she closes her eyes in anticipation of the second kill that never comes. 

_“You’re one a kind, Natasha.”_

In her dreams, there’s a man. He should have been a killer, he should have been a target, but instead he’s a lover, a man that knows her better than anyone she’s ever met in her life. He can pull her out of tailspin trigger spirals like its not any kind of deal; he can read her mind as if he’s lived inside of it himself and he doesn’t leave her when she gets angry, when she’s compromised, when she’s alone. He knows her favorite flavor of coffee and the type of fruit she likes when they’re abroad and he has her back, no matter where she is and no matter what she does.

“ _You and me, Nat. Always.”_

 

***

 

Natasha’s first instinct upon opening her eyes is to bolt and run, and it’s an act she probably would have followed through with if her body didn’t meet hands that immediately pushed her back down onto the bed. The movement is enough to allow her mind to slow, and she does a double take as the room comes into view around her – the bare walls and windows overlooking a grey, dim sky, the overstuffed comforter, the high mattress, and Clint, looking slightly worse for wear, his face inches from her own.

“You took that well.”

She doesn’t answer, allowing what she can remember to come back to her in waves. The chair. Banner. Tony’s lab. The injections. Steve. And Clint, but Clint wasn’t there, and there were so many memories and everything was so unfamiliar and Clint wasn’t there…

Natasha slumps back against the pillows, every inch of her body screaming defeat.

“I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“I’d say fucked up is one way to put it,” Clint answers, though there’s a look behind his eyes that tells a different story entirely. Natasha breathes out and pushes her head towards the ceiling, her eyes aligning with the smoothed out plaster. She takes two long breaths before asking the next question.

“Did they at least get the injections to work?”

Clint nods slowly. “Bruce said that your body managed to accept the formula before you…reacted. They’re waiting for the results now and should have them in a few hours.” There’s another pause and in the silence, he places a hand over her leg.

“I’m not going to ask what happened, Tash.”

Natasha looks down. “Because you already know or because you don’t want to know?”

He doesn’t respond, and she closes her eyes, a rush of unexplained relief spreading through her body.

“Pulled you out of Geneva, huh?” She sits up with a wince and he rubs a hand against her arm, one finger brushing gently over the strip of gauze covering the deep needle puncture.

“Wasn’t much to pull me out of,” he admits with a small shrug. “S.H.I.E.L.D. detained the guy about ten minutes after I got there; all I had to do was assess his motives and give them some intel on where the rest of his group might strike. I was already on my way back to New York when Stark called me.”

“Sounds just like New Mexico,” she mutters, her own eyes finding her forearm. She quickly averts them as he snakes one arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him as lightly as he can.

“Nat, if you’re not okay with this – ”

“Did you know I was a dancer, Clint?”

He stiffens, looking surprised and slightly taken aback at the question, and Natasha can’t tell if it’s because of the matter of the subject or because she’s changed their conversation entirely with no pretense.

“What?”

“Did you know I was a dancer?” She repeats the question and watches him shake his head slowly, as if he’s apprehensive about the nature of his response.

“No. I didn’t.”

Natasha smiles faintly as she traces a hand around his leg. “I wasn’t.” At Clint’s confused look, she shrugs, inching up next to his body as comfortably as she can.

“The memories they gave me, in the Red Room, when they were making me for the first time…or maybe they fifth, I don’t really know. But, well, that was one of them. They made me believe I was a ballet dancer, but I wasn’t. Had never danced a day in my life, except maybe for my parents when I was about six.” She drags a hand across her stomach, looking suddenly wistful and a little forlorn.

“I wasn’t a dancer, Clint. But maybe this kid will be.”

The breath that he lets out in turn out is heavy, as if all the air in his body has been held up tight until this moment, and when he speaks, it’s as if he’s struggling to get the words out properly.

“Natasha…”

“I want this,” she interrupts, taking his hand. “I don’t care what I have to do, what I have to have done to me. I want this.” She feels her eyes harden, a conscious effort of body and brain coming together in the same way she once trained herself to look a civilian in the eye, to shoot and then kill without a second thought.

“I want to balance my ledger, Clint. I want to get rid of the red, and I want this kid to help.”


End file.
